KQ5Win in ScummVM

[MusicallyInspired]

Support for the Windows version of KQ5 (basically General MIDI soundtrack with a some alternate tracks, like the weeping willow themes for instance) has been added to the latest SVN of ScummVM. It will not work with Adlib since it wasn't made for it to begin with. But if you have a General MIDI device it should play them fine. It's nice to have the alternate soundtrack there if one wants it. It still uses the regular large coloured cursors, though, as opposed to the small black and white Win 3.1 cursors.

[envisge0ne]

I'm using revision 54469 and none of the midi music seems to play at all. I tried playing it with my MT-32, then with MS General MIDI and with the MT-32 emulator.

[Collector]

I have been following the MIDI in SCI thread on the ScummVM forum. It looks like there are still issues with the MIDI support in ScummVM.

It will not work with Adlib since it wasn't made for it to begin with. But if you have a General MIDI device it should play them fine.

All versions of the game shipped with the Sierra AdLib driver, none with the General MIDI driver. I'm not sure how they did the music through Windows, but if the Windows game could address GM through Windows it seems that would be some level of GM support with in the game. If this is the case, I don't know why they didn't add GM support to the DOS game.

It's nice to have the alternate soundtrack there if one wants it. It still uses the regular large coloured cursors, though, as opposed to the small black and white Win 3.1 cursors.

I find those cursors distracting. It would be nice if ScummVM gave you a choice.

[envisge0ne]

Can anyone give any thoughts to why I can't get the MIDI music to play through the CD Win version? The CD DOS version plays the MIDI sounds just fine.


EDIT: Nevermind, I figured it out. After choosing the GM option under the Audio tab, I had to go to the MT-32 tab and check "Overide Global MT-32 Settings"

[MusicallyInspired]

KQ5CD doesn't have a DOS General MIDI driver but there are duplicate music tracks for every song in the game embedded in the resource files for the Windows version that are General MIDI (starting at sound resource number 1000, I believe). I had to select my Windows wavetable synth as the MIDI out music device to get the music to work. I didn't need to do anything in the MT-32 tab, though.

As to why they never made a General MIDI driver for the DOS version, maybe it wasn't really that popular yet. MT-32 or Adlib support wouldn't work in a Windows version of a Sierra game anyway because all the Sierra Windows ports are dependent on the Windows MIDI Mapper which is inherently General MIDI.

And yes, it would be nice if they gave players the choice for which cursors they want to use. Many devs have stated they're not opposed to the idea, though, so we'll probably see the option in the future. Someone should file a feature request if they haven't already. It'll get done eventually, I imagine. I personally dislike the smaller lower-quality cursors, but like you say it'd be nice to have the choice.

[Collector]

Odd that when Sierra released their after market GM drivers that they did not do one for KQ5 it the GM tracks were there to begin with. And with all of the people that have hack together sound drivers for the Sierra games why did no one like Ravi do a GM driver for KQ5.

[MusicallyInspired]

I personally don't think anybody really clued in. Every time I used to tell people that KQ5CD Win was in General MIDI they were like "Really?" And even then, they just assumed that the Windows version did some kind of conversion on the fly rather than using different files altogether. I had a hard enough time convincing people that there were actually alternate themes for some areas of the game, which is why I made that video on YouTube to show the differences.

[Collector]

which is why I made that video on YouTube to show the differences.

Link?

[MusicallyInspired]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guOpa1-Wy8I

[envisge0ne]

When you're playing KQ5 Win, does the bird chirps sound like they do through the MT-32? Or do they sound like strange rapid tones? I'm wondring if it's playing the sounds correctly

[MusicallyInspired]

The Windows version plays the Bird Tweet patch from General MIDI. Which, as far as I remember, is kind of a chirp and then tweet "ring-out"...whereas the MT-32 is just a quick chirp.